Barcelona to Galveston

We leave tomorrow for Barcelona. Well, not actually. After some research I found a hotel by LAX that will give you a night’s occupancy and 14 days free parking. This ends up being cheaper than any of the good quality parking lots. so we leave today. Our Delta flight is at 7AM, and it is supposed to rain Friday; we live 45 minutes from the airport, if there’s no traffic. But staying at the hotel will erase my worry slate. No accidents to hold us up in the rain, and we can sleep until 5AM. Oh boy.

We’ll get to Barcelona at 7 AM on Saturday and take a morning tour and then board around 11 AM. Our request for a table for two is “pending” which means I’ll have to see the Maitre â€˜D to work something out. Why a table for two? Just to be safe. We have met some nice people on our cruises, but also been stuck with some real mismatches.

On a world cruise we were at a table with a retired grade school teacher and a retired Colonel and his wife. When the teacher would tell a story, she demanded that no one interrupt. She shushed Michael, “You can ask questions after I’m through”. Fair enough, but by the time she was through, it was tough to remember what question you had. On further thought, she got away with no one asking her any questions. Meanwhile the Colonel took at least 50 photos in each port. This was before digital, and he had the ship develop them. Night after night he would dump the photos, good and bad, on the table like a deck of cards. We each had to look at each photo and make some comment. He took one photo from a top deck pointing straight down. “Eye in the sky!” he said. What he had was a photo of the top of my head. It.s still my favorite. At the time I had hair.

On formal nights, the Colonel would wear his medals hanging out of his jacket’s handkerchief pocket. I think there were four or five of them. When I asked him what they were for, he would only say they just represented a bunch of guys doing their job. Teacher said, “He’s so modest.” Hmmmm, if that were true, why wear them at all?

Then there was the guy who told a racist and semi dirty joke each night at dinner. He would always ask if anyone minded if the joke was racist and/or dirty. I would always answer, yes. He would then laugh as if I had made a joke and tell away; his wife shushing anyone who talked. One night I just got up and left the table. The next night there was nothing mentioned about my exit protest, and the jokes went on.

There are other examples, like the woman who talked to the empty chair. The woman who complained about the noise of the passing trains when we were three days at sea. But my favorite, only because of Karma, was the Chrysler dealer from the Midwest. We sat with him and his wife for lunch. He asked Michael what kind of car she drove, and she said a Lexus.

“A Gook car”, he blasted.

Michael was so taken aback she said, “But, but our other car is a Mercedes.”

He refused to talk to us for the rest of the meal. Now let’s see, wasn’t it Daimler Benz that bought Chrysler. Does that make Chrysler a “kraut” car?

So we look for a table for two, but if we can get a table for four set for two, that’s the best. We can then invite neat people that we’ve met along the way.

There’s a major storm about to hit here in LA. I hope it won’t mess up the plane schedule, as we have a connection in NY. I hope I’m not writing tomorrow’s blog from a NY airport hotel

One Response to “Barcelona to Galveston”

Take good care of her! We go out on her in April 13th for a honeymoon cruise and look forward to reading your experiences on the ship as it will give me some better insite on what to do for our first cruise!